Whether or not gender bias underlies the English pronoun system is not as much a question with a clear-cut, definitive answer as it is a controversy informed by subjective opinion. Can words be biased in and of themselves? Or do they require some connotative value to signify their meaning relative to a society, a context and/or time frame? What are the implications of using personal pronouns in every-day deliberative practices and how has gender-bias been interwoven and internalized into normative thought processes and applied in writing and other rhetorical situations? With these questions being central to debates surrounding gender and linguistics, it is imperative to devise a foundational basis upon which they can be thoroughly investigated with respect to the modern media and discursive landscape. Doing so will help to prevent language-facilitated gender exclusion – which is of increasing concern to transgender communities especially. Gender stereotypes have become imbedded into processes of individual and cultural cognition. Likewise, the socialization of gender norms and expectations plays a pivotal role in dictating collective beliefs about gender and identity. These ideals are reflected in and through the use of language and specifically, the English pronoun system. While there has been substantial effort taken by feminist theorists, scholars and activists to combat gender inequality and sexism on a global level, little consideration has been oriented towards lessening gender and media bias in the English language system --and especially that implied by personal pronouns that work to assume gender. Additionally, very little attention has been directed towards the exclusionary implications yielded by the reductive use of language to communicate gendered worldviews and to limit the free expression of unique identities. Thus, in what follows, a comprehensive theory of language and gender will make explicit the marginalizing effects of using personal pronouns.
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This paper will conduct a modern contextual analysis of the use of personal pronouns to demonstrate how they work to assume gender and continue, via the use of language, the standardization of gender binaries – male/female, dominant/submissive, for example. To support the central claim that personal pronouns contribute to the divisiveness of gender via language representation, this paper will follow closely the historical evolution of personal pronouns and provide examples of their problematic use in real-world rhetorical contexts to investigate their implicit gender bias. It will achieve this by, first, outlining the history of default pronouns and discussing the gradual integration of gender-neutral pronouns to mitigate concerns of linguistic bias. Then, it will examine the problematic use of personal pronouns to reference the gender of unborn children. It will critique the ‘language’ of gender reveal parties and parallel the pre-natal performance and assumption of gender with the use of personal pronouns to assume one’s gender in mundane communication. It will investigate how personal pronouns are used in children’s entertainment culture and integrated into educational resources like classwork. Finally, it will interrogate the internalization of gender bias, via the use of language, in occupational and political realms. Specifically, it will decode meaning behind strategic efforts taken to avoid the use of the first-person feminine pronoun, ‘she,’ in political speeches. This paper will conclude by reflecting on several potential problem areas that can inhibit inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals - on the basis of identity and expression - in the English language system.
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Pronouns and personal pronouns alike are often used in language to avoid redundancy. Understanding the evolution of personal pronouns throughout history is key in recognizing the problematic areas associated with their more frivolous and passive use in language. Because gender differences are reflected through pronouns, language bears the potential to reinforce gender inequality; however, if used carefully and courteously, they can actually lessen linguistic bias (Harris et al., 2018). Likewise, because language plays a fundamental role in shaping cultures and defining hierarchal norms, personal pronouns and the gender connotations they carry reinforce stereotypical self-expressive and career assumptions. Thus, the inherent lack of informed language neutrality present in contemporary culture’s discursive and linguistic landscape threatens the accuracy of individual representation. Gender is constructed both in and through language, and socially, through expectations, norms and representations that become internalized by individuals in society (Harris et al., 2018). The subconscious and often unintentional use of personal pronouns to assume gender is harmful and thus requires intentional practice and care to avoid misgendering (“Gender Diversity,” 2021). Pronouns can be thought of as archetypal social scripts that permit the visual display of gender through rhetoric. On a historic note, the evolution of personal pronouns reflects “sociological and developmental changes that occurred within English and alongside the other Germanic languages” (Darr and Kibbey, 2016, 76). Ultimately, language systems “simply stand to show that the third person had become a fully integrated point of contrast in the pronominal system” (Darr and Kibbey, 2016, 78). Transition from Old to Middle English saw a substantial advancement in the pronominal system: that is, “grammatical gender was abandoned in favor of natural gender” (Darr and Kibbey, 2016, 78).
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Personal pronouns standardize conventions surrounding other-directed writing, referencing and addressing. In other words, streamlining internalized assumptions of gender and stereotypical readings of socio-cultural gender dichotomies. Alongside the popularization of personal pronouns in everyday communication are underlying assumptions that conventionalize gender as a form of classificatory information. Personal pronouns are thus rooted in gender-politics and their use conventions have become ingrained into the infrastructure of the Modern English language system. Personal pronouns further linguistic relativity: that is, they are used to identify a particular subject on the basis of assumed ideologies corresponding to their socially appropriated and visually confirmed ‘gender’ (Harris et al., 2018). Linguistic bias reinforces gender norms, intensifies stereotypical othering and perpetuates marginalizing and discriminative interpretations of not only gender, but also broad social and sexual identities (Harris et al., 2018). In this way, language and the popularization of personal pronouns as indicators of identity further a reductive narrative: one that uses gender-associational ideals about conduct, appearance and workplace potential. This fundamentally alters the ways in which one internalizes their gender and understands their capabilities; it effectively interpellates individuals to recognize the normative behaviours that align with their gender self-concept (“Gender Diversity,” 2021).
Gender reveal parties constitute a site of discursive and ideological struggle in their exemplification of the problematic ways in which gender is performed, praised, fetishized and, in this case, anticipated. Gender reveal parties can be read as a discursive cultural text reinforcing binary gender stereotypes and actively contributing to the social construction and coercion of gender (Carlson, 2018). What is concerning, however, is the way in which language is used or ‘dressed,’ so to speak, to commodify the conflation of gender and sex. The strategic ‘choosing-for’ mentality, whereby parents brand the assumed gender identity of their child based on its biological sex, is commercialized into such public branding spectacles with pronominal reinforcement of gender through revelation discourse: “it’s a boy,” signage or “he or she” guessing games, for example. Linguistic expression of identity refers to words used to signal gender; gender reveal parties, however, demonstrate the false association of gender with biological sex (Carlson, 2018). This exemplifies the continual reinforcement of the male/female gender binary via the use of personal pronouns to reductively represent, based on broad assumptions, gender on the basis of biological sex (Darr and Kibbey, 2016, 74). Gender neutral language and etiquette, as Carlson (2018) notes, should be prioritized in these kinds of spectacles to avoid weaponizing language; namely, using it to exploitatively to threaten the authenticity one’s gender identity and freedom to self-express. Thus, more than perceived gender, gender revel parties, as Carlson (2018) suggests, shed light on the very commercialization of parenthood and the branding of gender on the basis of pink and blue, boy or girl, he or she, etc.
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Personal pronoun uses and associations have been and continue to be learned, practiced and appropriated in classroom settings. From a young age, gender is taught via the coercive disciplining of personal referencing pronouns and their ‘appropriate’ uses (Owen and Padron, 2015). Children become conditioned to understand gender through a narrow framework of identificatory terminology; namely, pronouns. He/She, Her/Him, Mrs./Mr., Sir/Madam, Wife/Husband, for example, are all binary divisions of gender condoned implicitly by the grammar of the English language system. Darr and Kibbey (2016) note that “genderqueer and non-binary students have felt further marginalized on campus without support from administration for their preferred pronouns” (72). Therefore, using gender neutral pronouns in classroom settings can help secure inclusion and equal validation of all identities. In other words, to ensure an inclusive workspace and classroom, redundant and reductive assumptions about the pronoun preferences of individuals should be avoided. Likewise, to mitigate pronoun-facilitated misgendering, students and workplace professionals should be granted the opportunity to make explicit their pronoun preferences in their work and study environments. Course policies, syllabi and lecture content should also include a variety of non-binary and trans-inclusive pronouns as well as policies about using gendered language respectfully (“Gender Diversity,” 2021).
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Moreover, there are several ways to delineate the problematic use of personal pronouns in children’s literature and advertising culture. The ideological ‘language’ of toys and strategic communication of gender differences is manipulated via advertisements and enforced through catchphrases, slogans and children’s songs. From a young age, individuals are hailed to understand their gendered toy and entertainment preferences and are targeted by advertisers, based on their perceived gender, using different pronominal language (Owen and Padron, 2015). Thus, the ways in which linguistic bias is interwoven into children’s literature manifest through the rhetoric of toys and via the packaging of entertainment. Narrative language used in children’s story books and literature often use gendered language to create a sense of tailoring: Owen and Padron’s (2015) research, for example, finds that “male narratives contain more second-person plural pronouns, aggression words and adjectival references to power” (76), while female narratives often use emotional and submissive stereotypes. Owen and Padron (2015) also note that in fiction and nonfiction writing, “females appear to use more personal pronouns” (69), which is also the case for advertisements directed at women. Conversely, in conversational settings, men use second person pronouns more than females do (Owen and Padron, 2015). The common association of second person personal pronouns with men, as done in advertising, suggests an “authoritative manner of instructing” that aligns with “traditionally masculine stereotypes of directness and dominance” (Owen and Padron, 2015, 69). In the realm of marketing and advertising, Owen and Padron (2015) note that pronouns are used “differentially as a function of gender” (69). Advertising to boys and men, for example, differ from advertising to women and girls; tone, pronominal and linguistic parameters fix this difference. For example, pronouns marked for masculinity, like ‘men,’ are often “used to refer to individuals in general terms or those of indefinite sex” (Yang, 2010, 12). While the grammatical standardization of language leads to the development of what Yang (2010) terms, “correctness” (9), for advertisers, using language is challenging due to the various contrasting opinions about the appropriateness of pronoun selection. Yang (2012) notes that while non-neutral pronouns and words can be considered sexist, sexist language with “strong discrimination towards one gender” is strongly avoided by advertisers as well (12). Ultimately, gender binaries grow with individuals; advertisements that reinforce gender binaries are often subconsciously read, making it hard to recognize problematic areas underlying their rhetorical structure.
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In the political realm, strategic use and selections of personal pronouns reflect linguistic biases that mirror expectations about gender roles and occupations. Research finds that people “rarely use the pronoun ‘she’ to refer to future political candidates” (“’She’ goes missing”, 2020, 1), but rather often implicitly use the pronoun ‘he’ when speaking about political leaders. Female politicians and presidential nominees are careful about their pronoun use, according to Sensales et al. (2018), in order to avoid conveying perceptions of weakness or magnifying their masculine difference. Gender bias in politics has interwoven into social thought and knowledge particularization; thus, pronouns in the political landscape can reinforce normative associations with social actors in positions of prestige and power (“’She’ goes missing”, 2020, 1). Hillary Clinton, during her running for presidency in 2016, for example, made frequent use of first-person plural objective pronouns (us, our) in her campaigns and public discourse to sow trust and create a sense of community (Alqahtani and Ali, 2017, 34). As Bello (2013) suggests, pronouns are evaluated in terms of their deictic or anaphoric features “which does not help in unraveling the associations they socially and politically engender” (qtd. in Alqahtani and Ali, 2017, 34); female politicians especially “use pronouns pragmatically in the context of interaction and identity-work” (Alqahtani and Ali, 2017, 34). As a performative construct, gender is interwoven into interactions initiated by and between social actors. They serve as a medium through which sexist stereotypes can be both countered and encountered, as Sensales et al. (2018) suggest.
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While cis-gendered individuals can have their gender adequately affirmed through normative personal pronouns, referencing rhetoric and honorifics like Ms., Mr., Sir, woman, man, wife, husband, etc., transgender and non-binary individuals are more easily misgendered in result of the improper designation of gender via personal pronouns (“Gender Diversity,” 2021). This contributes to the “routine invalidation of trans people” (“Gender Diversity,” 2021), which dehumanizes and punishes them for holding alternate or “taboo” desires of self-expression. The social construction of gender and its inherent plurality has fundamentally altered the ways in which the pronominal system and its derivatives are organized. In a sense, pronouns can be read as indicators of heteronormative privilege: “The ability for one person to tell another person their preferred pronouns are a point of privilege,” (75), as Dar and Kibbey (2016) note. This privilege, however, is not granted to transgender and genderqueer communities. Steps that can be taken to mitigate language-facilitated gender marginalization include language neutralization – replacing he/she with ‘they,’ for example – and language feminization – using ‘she’ or ‘her’ in place of ‘he’ and ‘him’ in male-dominated realms especially (Harris et al., 2018).
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The categorization of individual identities is one damaging consequence associated with linguistic sexism – or, in other words, the frivolous use of language. Modern rhetoric and cultural industries such as entertainment, political and educational ones often controversialize the use of language and personal pronouns by implicitly discriminating on the basis of gender, identity and perceived levels of capability. The problematic use of personal pronouns in these industries display the social internalization of gender-biased language and repercussions on levels and feelings of inclusivity with respect to the expression of gender and identity from members of the LGBTQ+ community. Implied meanings behind the use of the gender-specific pronouns, ‘he’ and ‘she,’ in popular culture rhetoric like gender reveal parties, children’s literature, advertising and political speeches show how the social naturalization of language prioritizes standardized representations of gender, promotes exclusion and normalizes linguistic sexism. Increased social education about gender and language thus requires a collective preliminarily understanding of binaries in language and in the personal pronoun system. This, alongside the possible integration of gender-neutral personal pronouns like the Swedish ‘hen’ pronoun, for example, can help sensitize language, lessen instances of gender bias and prompt linguistic inclusion considerably.
References
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